David Thomas...Anyone heard from him?

nope they would not, and considering that modchips are still looked at being only used for piracy then they would not help. But the modchips I had and was using them for was repairs. Boot up the slayers disc to rebuild the hard drives.

So how it stands now I'm out 2x XBIT chips, 3x Enigmah (29-wire chips, NOS), and a 1.6(a/b) spiderchip.

 

So before anyone goes on a rampage, have ANY of you actually consulted anyone that knows law?

 

nope I have not, but am looking at making a trip to Florida this year

Edit: okay I'll clear up a few things I have said. When I said I was planning a trip to Florida it was directed to going to his local police department and providing them with all the details. I would never be dumb enough to randomly show up to someones house and start screaming and demanding he return items to me. That is a fast way to get yourself hurt.

 

Granted it's not the most mature or ethical approach nor am i suggesting it, but if his ebay account is still active one could always buy an item to find out if it's being shipped from the same location. Perhaps he is not longer even in Florida. Then once item is received, here is the unethical portion, one could file a claim with eBay and leave negative feedback of item not received. One would get an item from David, get money back, get current address, get to warn others through feedback he is a "thief". Best of all, eventually enough violations and ebay will suspend and subsequently ban him. Again, not suggesting anyone do the unethical stuff, but one could easily get an updated address if one were so inclined.

 

Yeah but that would only be possible to a point, I have sent pm to a few people asking about his ebay account and not got any responses back.

 

It was listed a couple places earlier in the thread:
http://www.assemblergames.com/forum...heard-from-him&p=790827&viewfull=1#post790827
It looks like he was buying stuff and not selling though

 

thank you did not see it before.

 

So has anyone done this yet? Seems like the best piece of advice. Not one person has said they've picked up the phone yet.

 

Im waiting to talk with my attorney and see what he says can be done if anything can be done. I also found this website where you can report an online crime:
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

 

OK, I agree this is getting out of hand.

By all means, use this thread to discuss contact with him and what action you may take as a collective group calmly and rationally.

We know you're frustrated. We all would be. However, using bad language every sentence doesn't help your case and doesn't make you look good. He could turn around in court and say you were rude to him. Incidentally, use of terms like BS and A@$ don't make it any better - if you're going to swear, just swear. Don't hide your words. If you think the forum filters certain words, then you probably shouldn't use them in the first place. It doesn't, though.

Please don't edit your posts then claim you never said anything. We know.

got changed to....

You can hide that from users here, but you can't hide the fact that you were using less than polite language with him.

A word to the wise - if someone rips you off, no matter how angry you are, BE POLITE.

"You're a cheating, lying scammer! You keep giving me bullshit that your family died, you were in a car crash etc. etc. but you're on eBay still. You're ignoring me - what a piece of shit you are!" is not going to get you anywhere. Put yourself in his shoes - would YOU reply to that? Would you say you're sorry and offer the money back? I very much doubt it. And would you take that to court and say he abused you? Of course you would. Likewise, if your relative was in hospital and you happened to receive that abuse, would you reply?

"I'm really sorry to have to chase this up again, but I've noticed you seem to be selling on eBay once more. I'm really pleased to see you're feeling better, but I'm rather disappointed that you haven't replied to me as of yet. There are a few people on ASSEMbler who are worrying that they won't get their goods or a refund. To prevent having to take matters to court, could you please get back to me and let me know what's happening?" is a much better way to tackle the situation. You're being polite, but letting him know that you know he's active (or a family member on his behalf - and they're more likely to respond to a polite message), you're upset that he has strung this out and want resolution. You also know others who haven't received anything, and you're letting him know that you will all take legal action against him if he does not reply.

What really gets me is that some of you, all new users who either signed up especially for this discussion or had not long been contributing to the community, are giving staff grief for reprimanding you. Snap out of it. We appreciate you're upset, but it's hard to sympathize when you turn our forum into a toilet with your potty mouths. You don't HAVE to swear to get across that you're annoyed.

Even more than that, I'm upset that several members, myself included, offered you sound advice. TALK TO PAYPAL. TALK TO YOUR BANK. TALK TO HIS LOCAL POLICE STATION. TALK TO YOUR SOLICITOR. Have any of you done that? It seems the answer is a big fat NO. Stop being so lazy - take the RIGHT course of action before it's too late. You've already waited too long - hopefully you'll learn that it's well worth filing a PayPal claim within the time limit anyway, as a precation, in future. I know that doesn't help you out with this situation and I'm sorry - but you really need to talk to the Police. If you're really thinking of going down there, ask them if they would escort you to his house to ask for your goods back.

As for the legality issue, are we talking about original Xbox? I don't think anyone's really going to care. Just say it's a dead system and you want the chip to enable you to do some coding or something like that. I think someone suggested they were using it to repair the console - again, a reasonable excuse, I'm sure. Ultimately, though, you bought a silicon chip - nothing wrong with that. It just happened to have some code on it that alters an old games console. And if you sent him items, then that's theft - just chase it up.

If we have any more issues in the thread, we won't hesitate to take further action - which could mean some of you finding yourselves unable to use the forums for a while, or the thread could be locked. Whilst we support you trying to take action against a rogue trader and making people aware of him, and will offer any help we may be able to give, we're not going to see the forum turned into a childish slanging match. If you're not teenage boys, act your age - and if you are, grow up.

*EDIT*

We seem to have crossed posts there! Sounds like someone's finally taking the right action. However, it's well worth calling that Police department for advice, too. You don't have to tell them they're potentially illegally modded Xboxes, just say goods not received. IC3 is good, but you're best speaking to someone in person where possible - the Police, a lawyer etc.

You have to understand that we see these cases often. It's a sad fact in the collecting World. People over at Neo Geo are still butthurt over deals that happened over 10 years ago. That's what happens when you don't take the right action. Sitting and whining does you no good and you just turn into a bitter old man. Worst case scenario, you try your best, can't take legal action and have to write it off as a bad experience. Either way, don't let it get to you too much or it will be a chip on your shoulder forever.

 

I admit that I said that stuff. I only removed it because I thought I would get in trouble for foul language on the thread. I'm a new member of the site. I don't wanna get kicked off for bad language. Of course I was upset but I never threatened him.

 

Threatened might have been a poor choice of words on some people's part. Insulted might be better. However, bad language can count as abuse. I watched the UK equivalent of Judge Judy the other day and a guy selling a car said the buyer phoned him up effing and blinding, telling him he ripped him off and knew it was broken and demanding he paid for repairs. He said to the judge that he ended up ignoring him because he was being abusive and saying "I know where you live. I'm going to come round and sort this out." The judge accepted that he was afraid for his and his family's safety and that it could be construed as a threat.

So, as we're trying to tell you all, be careful what you say on here, or any public forum - especially if you intend to take this matter to court. Words like "I'm going round his house" and "his day is coming" are open to different interpretations, perhaps as threats. If you said "I'm going to pop round, see if he's in, have a quick chat over a cup of tea and see if we can resolve this matter without having to take legal action", then you might be in better standing. However, I'd advise any in-person contact be done with Police assistance - he could say that you threatened him in person and you have no proof otherwise if you turn up alone, or with an angry mob.

Best to get that legal advice first, really. See if there's a free legal aid helpline that could give some initial advice if you can't afford a solicitor. Or go in together as a group - although a solicitor will probably want to charge each of you a fee.

 

Everybody keeps telling us to go the police or paypal but most of this was trades, not money, and it was all done over forums or email. There are no contracts or legal agreements or anything close to that, just one's guys word. So how the heck can we file police reports or fraud because it's not like he owns a business or repairs or buying and selling games. Also most of us live on the other side of the state. I'm in California and he's in Florida.

He's not answering any of our emails or calls months later regardless of whether we use polite language or not.

 

I'll do it again, chill out. I don't care what the situation is but so far all I've seen is a bunch of angry people gathering pitchforks and lanterns wording posts in such a way that won't look good in front of a judge. On top of that the mods are telling you the exact same thing.

Don't make what look like idle threats on a public forum and I won't feel the need to tell you that you might want to think a bit more rationally about what you post or at least how you word things.

I used threatened because of the exact example you used. Unless you provide context, such as the idea that you can serve papers, you're an idiot to think it cannot be construed any other way. There is a reason legal documents are so verbose and it isn't just to prevent laymen from being able to figure out how to defend themselves in court.

 

okay I'll clear up a few things I have said. When I said I was planning a trip to Florida it was directed to going to his local police department and providing them with all the details. I would never be dumb enough to randomly show up to someones house and start screaming and demanding he return items to me. That is a fast way to get yourself hurt.

I have confirmed the mailing address and phone number I have as being his correct information. (Thanks ebay!)

I have called him at 8:55am, got no answer from him.
Then at 12:42pm I get a text message from him

which at 5:59pm I sent the following message back

no response back from him.

so at 6:45pm I decide to call him and leave him a voice mail.

Basically if he will not respond back to me by tuesday at midnight, wednesday around noon I plan to call his local police department. Which seems to be located very close to his house.

 

Nice lwizardl. Hopefully, we get an answer. Although everything about DT sounds fishy

BTW, I'm curious. Exactly how many people are waiting for items/money from David Thomas that he promised to send out and never did?

 

This really was starting to get a bit out of hand, I'm glad to see we're coming to a understanding about how we should be expressing ourselves.
I know its upsetting and its very maddening to be in a situation like this, I'm in the same boat as a lot of you.
Just thought I would let everyone know where I'm standing with this whole ordeal.

I've filed claims against David with my bank. They have been able to help with some of the damage done and gave me "Temporary chargebacks" on two of my payments to David.
One for $113 and the other for $103. I believe they are trying to give David time to contact them back to counter my claim of "Items not received". So far to my knowledge he as not replied to the claim.
Now obviously I'm still out about $500 bucks which I'm currently not sure I will see again. My Bank says they were processed in a different way than the other two were and that they couldn't contest them and that I would have to go through Paypal.
I'm not sure if Paypal will actually do anything for me though, I have called them and spoke to a very helpful Rep who said she would do everything she can for me but that she didn't know if anything could be done due to the payments being so old and that they were done through Davids Requested "Friends and Family" payment option that he said was to "Avoid any charges and ensure correct amount is received".

Ive spoken to the police to see what could be done, they said I could File a claim against him with my Local police department and they would look into it and contact the police department in David's area.
I'm not sure what I want to do at this point. Going to Florida isn't an option currently.

 

Good to hear that someone else is taking action on this thanks man!! You know it sucks he's in this situation, but he has everybody's property and he needs to return our property to us!! If he's complaining he has no money i will gladly pay for him to ship all my stuff back to me as well as the stuff i paid for!! All i want is my stuff back thats all. I Like the part where he's says he's 4 months behind and can barely feed his kids but then he's buying stuff on ebay "right"!! Anyways my apologizes to the moderators please give us time and please don't lock this thread. Please let us know if you find out anything more and ill post what i find out.

 

Good for you ToxicMedz.

 

The scary thing is, he still seems to be claiming he has no money, but is buying things from eBay.

I reckon he's probably scamming the state too.